


this is how we grow, now

by sparxwrites



Series: 22, A Million [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hair Braiding, Internalized Homophobia, Love Confessions, Pre-Slash, Sexuality Crisis, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:13:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22067584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparxwrites/pseuds/sparxwrites
Summary: Jester giggles, and the half-hearted hand she presses to her mouth does nothing to stifle the sound. “Is thereanythingyou like though, Beau? Other than punching people, I mean. Which you’re very good at, you know, but I don’t think it counts as ahobby, really.”“I likeyou,” blurts Beau, before her brain can catch up with her big, dumb mouth.(In which Beau and Jester have a talk that neither of them meant to have, which ends up being more complicated than either of them expected.)
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett
Series: 22, A Million [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2147964
Comments: 14
Kudos: 219





	this is how we grow, now

“You used to do _embroidery_?” squeals Jester, high-pitched and clearly delighted with the mere concept of Beau doing any kind of needlework. “That is _very_ funny, actually. I bet you were _terrible_ at it.”

“Yeah, I was shit, and I fuckin’ _hated_ it,” Beau says, vehemently. 

Her calloused hands are gentle with Jester’s hair, carefully twisting one half of it into a plait even as a scowl furrows her brow. The long grass of the meadow tickles at her shins where she’s sat cross-legged behind Jester’s lazy sprawl. The late afternoon sun is catching on her bare arms, the wildflowers filling the air with something sweet and fresh, and it’s… peaceful. Mostly.

Somewhere off to the left, a familiar dome pops into existence. Smoke drifts up from Caduceus’s campfire, undoubtedly already being put to good use brewing tea and the beginnings of dinner’s stew. Carried on the wind, above the sound of roosting birds, Nott’s shrieking about something, as usual. Possibly Fjord. Almost definitely Fjord, actually. There’s a certain level of vitriol to her howled curses that’s only ever achieved when she’s yelling at him.

None of that is as important, though, as the sun on the back of Beau’s neck, the warmth of the evening breeze, and her fingers against Jester’s scalp.

Jester giggles, and the half-hearted hand she presses to her mouth does nothing to stifle the sound. “Is there _anything_ you like though, Beau?” she asks. “Other than punching people, I mean. Which you’re very good at, you know, but I don’t _really_ think it counts as a _hobby_ , really.”

“I like _you_ ,” blurts Beau, before her brain can catch up with her big, dumb mouth.

“Aww!” Jester coos, somehow bouncing on the spot whilst sitting cross-legged amongst the grass and scattered wildflowers. It messes up Beau’s grip on the strands of the plait badly enough she has to shuffle the hair around in her hands, automatically, whilst the rest of her brain is busy panicking. “I like you too, Beau!”

“No, like… I _like_ you,” says Beau, rather than taking the convenient out handed to her on a platter. She’s got idiot disease today, apparently, and it’s terminal. “Like– y’know. Whatever.”

It’s not the smoothest line she’s ever delivered, but it gets her point across nonetheless. The bouncing stops. Jester stills.

“Oh,” she says, in a voice that’s significantly less enthusiastic than Beau would like, but less angry than she was worried it might be. Barely angry at all, really, more a note of tension threaded through her voice like a tight-coiled spring. “ _Oh_. Like you want to make out with me? And– have sex with me? And stuff.”

Beau chokes.

“I mean,” she manages, hoarsely, fingers still working on Jester’s plait even as she struggles to recover from _that_ particular sucker punch to the throat. “That wasn’t gonna be my _immediate_ suggestion, but– yeah. Like that, I guess.”

“Oh.”

Jester doesn’t make a move to pull away, or to push Beau away, so Beau just… stays. They sit there in silence for a minute. Two minutes. Longer. Beau finishes the first plait, ties it carefully in place with a ribbon, and moves onto the second. Her fingers against Jester’s scalp as she cards through the half-head of hair in preparation for plaiting is intimate enough to make her _cringe_.

The idea is stuck in her mind now, though, flickering images going round and round and _round_. Her head between Jester’s legs, Jester’s hands in her hair, purple hickeys on blue skin and the dark-salt smell of arousal… It’s not like she’s never thought of it before, never imagined it late at night, but it seems– _worse_ , like this. An overstepping of boundaries, in the bright light of day, with her hands in Jester’s hair.

“I don’t think that’s how you’re supposed to do confessions of love, you know,” says Jester, softly, after a while.

Beau bristles, to hide the way her stomach’s just plummeted straight to the planet’s core. “Oh yeah?” she says, trying not to bite the words out sharp and jagged, and only half-succeeding. “How’re you _supposed_ to do them then?”

“They’re supposed to be– dramatic, you know? And all, well, you know, there’s flowers, and there’s lots of people, and a banquet or a dragon or something, and swooning, and I think perhaps one of us is supposed to be on a horse…” She trails off, uncertainly. “I think. Or at least that’s how it works in the stories, anyways. There’s always a prince, or a knight, or a– something, sweeping the princess off her feet.”

“In the stories.” Beau finishes up the second plait, messier and more haphazard than the first. She ties the ribbon with fingers that shake – humiliation, anger, misery, all or none of them wrapped inscrutably up in the urge to go punch something. Her heart has always been opaque. Hitting things has always set it to rights. “Right. Yeah.”

She rubs her hands on her trousers, grits her teeth so tight her head hurts, and gets up to _run_ –

“Can I think about it?”

For the second time that evening, Jester effortlessly stuns her speechless. 

“Oh,” says Beau, faintly. The jittery _bad_ washes away in a wave of prickling, confused not-quite-hope. “Um. Yeah? That’s– uh, fine, I. I wasn’t– expecting an answer, or anything. I didn’t think you were, um. Y’know. That you liked women.”

For a moment, there’s silence, teetering and fragile. The world holds its breath. 

_Beau_ holds her breath.

“I don’t _know_ if I do,” wails Jester, quietly – and though she’s still facing away towards the trees, Beau can _feel_ the scrunched-face look misery she’s wearing. “I don’t _know_! It’s not– it’s not like in the stories! Everything’s so _simple_ there, you’re supposed to– there’s a boy, and there’s a girl, and they fall in love and get married and live happily ever after, and that’s what you’re _supposed_ to do, I guess, but that’s not– but I don’t–”

“You’re not a story, though, Jes’,” says Beau, softly. She crouches down beside Jester, lays a tentative, awkward hand on her friend’s hunched shoulder. “You know that, right? You’re just– _you_.”

Jester sniffles, draws in an unsteady, shaking breath, and turns to bury her face into Beau’s shoulder with a noise somewhere between a sob and a _shout_. “It’s so _complicated_!” Her words are muffled, but still audible, and Beau is _so_ not equipped for this, holding Jester with all the terror of a goliath handling a baby mouse. “It’s– it all sounded so _simple_ , when it was in books, but it’s _not_ , and I don’t– I don’t _understand_ –”

“Yeah,” says Beau, tiredly. She forgets herself, for a moment, and pets at the baby hairs at the nape of Jester’s neck, gentle and soothing. They’re so _soft_ , and Jester’s skin is so _warm_ , and it wraps a fist around her heart. “Real life’s a bitch like that, huh? Fuckin’ complications all over the place.”

“ _Yeah_ ,” agrees Jester, emphatically, wetly, face still muffled against Beau’s shoulder. She’s trembling a little, fine and faint across her shoulders, and Beau loses her fight with the urge to rub them until they stop. “It _sucks_.”

They sit there in silence, for a while, pressed together in the fading light. It’s _easy_ , in a way that hurts Beau right between her ribs. No matter how scared she is, it’s easy, holding Jester like this as she cries.

It _terrifies_ her, how _right_ it feels.

“What do you _want_ , Jes’?” she says, eventually, as gently as she can. The words feel heavy in her throat, a kind of exhaustion behind them. She doesn’t _do_ this – this is Caduceus’ job, or maybe Fjord’s, this feelings thing. She’s not _equipped_. And yet– here she is. “Not… not what you _should_ want, or what the stories say, or anything else. What do _you_ want?”

“I don’t _know_ ,” says Jester, and it’s less a wail now than it is frustrated, plaintive. “I thought I wanted it like in the stories! Because they’re so fun, and _romantic_ , and it’s just _easy_ , you know? But… but so many women are, you know, like, pretty, or handsome, or– and _you_ are, too, you know, Beau, you’re _very_ handsome– and I thought _everyone_ thought things like that! I thought it was just a, _oh, they look nice_ , that kind of thing. But maybe it’s _not_? But maybe it _is_? And, and I’m still… I’m trying to untwist it all, you know? I’m _trying_.”

Beau exhales, slowly. Touches her tongue to the back of her teeth, forces her words to _stay_ for a moment so she can put them in order. This need to be right. She need to get this _right_.

“You can think about it,” she says, when she’s sorted them out. Her fingers are still on the softness of Jester’s neck, tracing up and down the line of her vertebrae there. “You know? Take some time to work it out. I’m not… _going_ anywhere. And I’m not…” She swallows, steels herself. “I’m not gonna change my mind about– y’know. Liking you. Either. So I’m still gonna be here tomorrow, and next week, and– unless I get eaten by the next monster we meet, I guess. Then you’re shit outta luck.”

It’s a weak joke, with a poor delivery – but Jester giggles, damp and unsteady, and that’s all that matters. “Really?” she asks, sitting up to wipe her eyes and nose, scrubbing at her cheeks with a now-steady hand. “You promise?”

Her face is wide-open, hopeful and slightly tear-streaked as she proffers up a small, hesitant smile, and _oh_ , Beau is _so fucked_.

“Yeah,” Beau says, rather than the _holy shit_ on the tip of her tongue, the _can I kiss you_ in her throat, the _I think I love you_ buried deep in the bottom of her lungs. “Yeah, Jes’. I promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> I just... want them to touch each other's hair and fall in love... is this too much to ask? I think not. also Jester is _absolutely_ bi/a lesbian in canon, but compulsory heterosexuality is one hell of a drug, and understanding your own sexuality is not made easier by being a sheltered child who learned about relationships from shitty romance novels and spying on her mother's sex work. she'll get there eventually, though!
> 
> title from Bon Iver's "[33 "GOD"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C5sB6AqJkM)", because _22, A Million_ continues to inexplicably be my Beau/Jester album. (and also because " _I'd be happy as hell if you stayed for tea / (I know so well that this is all there is) / This is how we grow now, woman / A child ignored_ " and " _if the calm would allow / Then I would just be floating to you now_ " makes me feel like someone's attached jump cables to my lungs.)
> 
> many thanks to ladyofrosefire (ao3/tumblr) for the beta. find more fic, which is usually nothing like this one, @ sparxwrites on tumblr.


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